Core Training Topics
A practical training program should follow the user's actual workflow rather than focus only on individual screens. Employees should learn how to complete a transaction from initial entry through submission and understand what to do when Costpoint displays a validation message or returns an item for correction.
- Time entry: Record regular hours, overtime, leave, projects, activities, and applicable charge codes.
- Expense reporting: Enter amounts, dates, categories, business purposes, and required supporting documentation.
- Validation: Check required information and resolve data-entry or policy exceptions before submission.
- Approval: Understand routing, reviewer responsibilities, returned transactions, and approval status.
- Corrections: Update rejected or returned transactions while preserving accurate supporting information.
- Reporting: Understand how approved time and expenses contribute to project and financial reporting.
Training should distinguish employee responsibilities from supervisor, project manager, finance, and system-administrator responsibilities so each participant understands the part of the process they control.
Expense Capture and Documentation
Expense training should teach users to record transactions promptly and provide complete supporting evidence. Real Time Expense Documentation describes maintaining expense evidence close to the transaction date, helping employees preserve accurate receipts, descriptions, and business-purpose details.
Real Time Expense Capture focuses on recording expense information promptly so amounts, dates, categories, and supporting details enter the financial workflow while the transaction information is current. Training can demonstrate how timely capture supports more complete project cost information.
Users should also understand which expenses require receipts, how documents should be attached, and which descriptions provide sufficient business context. These practices help reviewers validate transactions consistently before approval.
Accounting and Financial Reporting Skills
Costpoint training should explain how time and expense entries affect accounting records. Employees need enough accounting context to select the appropriate project, activity, expense category, or charge code, while finance teams should understand how approved transactions flow into reporting.
When invoice or expense information moves through capture, extraction, validation, matching, GL coding, approval, and posting, the chart of accounts provides the accounting structure used to classify transactions. Training can show users how accurate source information supports downstream posting and financial reporting.
Training should also explain gl coding because the correct general ledger account, project, department, or cost category determines how an expense appears in financial records. Clear examples can help employees recognize the difference between business purpose and accounting classification.
Month-end training can include how accounts payable teams identify unrecorded expenses, evaluate cut-off, recognize applicable accruals, and coordinate expense information with close activities.
Training for Procurement and Connected Workflows
Time and expense processes often connect with broader operational workflows. Training can explain how employee expenses relate to purchasing, project budgets, vendor transactions, and procure-to-pay controls. For example, a purchase order can establish an approved purchasing reference that supports spend visibility and procurement controls.
Users involved in purchasing can also learn how procurement workflows connect requisitions, approvals, purchasing activity, and financial records. Understanding these relationships helps employees recognize how individual transactions contribute to broader business processes.
Budget awareness is another useful training topic. Budget Control can provide real-time visibility into procurement budget usage and alerts based on defined spending conditions, helping teams understand how transaction activity relates to available budgets.
ERP Integration and Operational Training
Costpoint training should cover connected systems when employees or finance teams work across multiple applications. integrations can support secure, real-time data exchange between ERP and finance applications, allowing synchronized information to move between connected workflows.
Training should explain which system serves as the source of record, which fields are synchronized, and how transaction status changes are reflected across applications. This is particularly important when finance teams extend workflows around ERP functionality or introduce new integrations.
Vendor-related processes may also require operational training. Notifications For Vendor Management can provide updates on vendor onboarding, invoices, purchase orders, and payments through connected vendor workflows, helping internal teams understand where supplier information appears and how status changes are communicated.
Accruals, Audit Trails, and Financial Controls
Advanced Costpoint training can introduce users to the relationship between operational transactions and period-end accounting. accruals represent expenses that belong to an accounting period even when the related invoice or final transaction has not yet been recorded. Understanding this relationship helps finance teams connect operational activity with month-end expense recognition.
Training should also explain why transaction history matters for financial controls. Real Time Expense Audit Trail describes maintaining a chronological record of expense activity, supporting evidence, changes, and workflow events. Users should understand how their actions contribute to an auditable financial process.
Building an Effective Costpoint Training Program
Organizations can structure training by role rather than giving every participant the same level of system instruction. Employees need transaction-entry and correction skills, reviewers need approval and validation skills, project managers need project-cost visibility, and finance teams need accounting, reporting, and control knowledge.
- Use realistic scenarios: Demonstrate common project, travel, labor, and expense transactions.
- Practice complete workflows: Move from entry through validation, submission, approval, and reporting.
- Explain financial impact: Show how project and expense classifications affect downstream accounting.
- Document recurring procedures: Maintain concise instructions for common tasks and corrections.
- Refresh training: Update materials when Costpoint configuration, policies, approval rules, or integrations change.
A role-based approach helps users understand both the mechanics of Costpoint and the financial purpose behind each step, making training more useful for day-to-day operations.
Summary
Costpoint Time and Expense Training prepares users to enter, validate, submit, approve, and manage time and expenses accurately within Deltek Costpoint. Strong training combines hands-on system instruction with project accounting, documentation, procurement, ERP integration, accrual, and audit-control concepts. A role-based program can help employees and finance teams maintain consistent processes while supporting reliable project costing and financial reporting.